Commissioner Glenn S. Goord said he would pursue the severest criminal and departmental charges possible against an inmate who allegedly stabbed and threw a hot liquid on a Correction Officer today at the maximum-security Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville in Dutchess County.

Commissioner Goord said, "The rate of inmate-on-staff assaults in New York prisons is at a 23-year low because we do not tolerate such violence. I will ask the investigating Dutchess County District Attorney to adhere to our policy of prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law any inmate who attacks an employee."

The Correction Officer worked an assigned post today on the ground floor of G-Block, where all posts were filled as usual. Inmate Corey Ford is suspected of coming out of his general confinement cell at 12:30 p.m., crossing 10-15 feet to where the officer stood, and throwing a cup of a hot liquid on the officer, then stabbing the officer with a nine-and-one-half inch long and one-quarter inch wide sharpened steel rod. The alleged weapon has been recovered.

The officer pulled the pin on a personal alarm following the attack. Three of the responding officers wrestled the inmate to the ground. He was moved to the disciplinary housing unit.

The officer, stabbed twice in the back and through the left arm, was transported to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where the officer is being treated for stab wounds and burns to the left side of the face. The injuries are not reported to be life-threatening. Identifying details about the officer are not being released by the Department. Federal privacy statutes preclude it from releasing details of an identified person’s medical status or care.

Inmate Ford, 30, is serving a sentence of 12-and-one-half to 25 years for convictions in the Bronx for second-degree attempted murder, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree bail jumping, and a Dutchess County conviction for second-degree kidnapping.

He entered the prison system on Dec. 12, 1995. He was transferred from Auburn on Feb. 11, 2004, to Green Haven, which today houses 2,068 inmates in its 2,170 beds.

The prison system has seen 143 inmate-on-staff assaults in the first three months of this year, compared to 172 during the same period last year.

There were 568 inmate-on-staff assaults committed in 2003 from among 66,050 inmates. That’s the fewest since 430 such assaults from among 23,558 inmates in 1981. The most occurred in 1990, when 1,260 inmate-on-staff assaults were committed from among 55,564 inmates.

Green Haven saw 37 inmate-on-staff assaults last year. That is below the previous five-year average of 41 such assaults annually.

Besides criminal charges, the inmate will also face departmental charges that could lead to a period of 23-hour-a-day confinement to a disciplinary housing unit. In fact, Ford was in keeplock status in his cell after having been found guilty at a disciplinary hearing of possession of illegal drugs. He was keeplocked in his cell awaiting either a cell opening in either Green Haven’s or another prison’s disciplinary housing unit.

Keeplock status is similar to that of disciplinary housing, except the inmate remains in a general confinement cell rather than being moved to the disciplinary Special Housing Unit.

It was when his double-occupancy cell was opened to allow his cell mate to enter that Ford rushed out of the cell and attacked the officer.

Because the Division of State Police BCI are at this moment conducting an investigation and have sealed the cell, prison officials could not comment on what the hot liquid was, whether the inmate used a hot pot or immersion unit to heat the liquid, or the source of the weapon, which is also in the cell.